Thursday, December 3, 2009

Enlisting Geocachers for the DARPA Challenge

As part of the nationwide DARPA event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Interwebs, we're enlisting geocachers to be part of a fun social networking/GPS technology challenge. The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The winner will receive $40,000. If Groundspeak wins the challenge we will throw in another $10,000 of our own money and the full $50,000 prize will go to schools that need GPS equipment through donorschoose.org.

This Saturday, December 5th, a group of Groundspeak Lackeys will meet up in the DARPA War Room at Groundspeak's Headquarters to gather information online of the possible locations of the 10 weather balloons. We hope you will follow our attempts to win the challenge and help us along the way by gathering information both online and on the ground.

How Can I Get Involved?

We expect that there will be a lot of wild rumors being shared across the Internet. Some will be actual sightings and others will be fake leads by people either competing in the challenge or just having fun.

Our secret weapon is an army of GPS enthusiasts around the world who we know and trust. In other words, YOU! We'll be taking some liberties to enlist your help for a good cause.

Are you up for it? If so, follow this Blog and expect a flurry of updates on Saturday as we spend a part of our weekend trying to claim the prize for teachers and students.

Projects Funded @DonorsChoose

About Groundspeak

Groundspeak is a 9 year old company that owns and operates Geocaching.com. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.